"How so?"
"If they had wives they would be better able to sympathize with the trials and joys of their parishioners."
"I never thought of that," murmured Mrs. Fenton.
Mr. Candish flushed all over his homely, freckled face.
"By the same reasoning you might hold that a clergyman should have committed all the sins in the decalogue, so that he should have ready sympathy with all sorts of sinners."
"I'm not sure that he wouldn't be more useful if he had," Mrs. Herman answered with a smile; "at least a man who hasn't wanted to commit a sin must find it hard to sympathize with the wretch that hasn't been strong enough to resist temptation. Still, I hope that sin and marriage are not put into the same category."
"Oh, of course not," Mrs. Fenton interpolated. "Marriage is a sacrament."
"It has always seemed to me inconsistent," Mrs. Herman went on, "that the church should exclude her priests from one of the sacraments."
Ashe saw a faint cloud pass over the face of the hostess. He was himself a little shocked; and Candish frowned slightly.
"The church admits her priests to this sacrament in a higher sense," he said with some stiffness.